


Papercuts

by PurpleArrowzandLeather



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Son of Batman (2014), Under the Red Hood
Genre: Angst, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Lies, he tries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-11-23 19:47:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20895134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PurpleArrowzandLeather/pseuds/PurpleArrowzandLeather
Summary: They've always said that lies hurt the ones you love the most. None of Bruce's children had any idea how important it was for him to know the truth.





	Papercuts

**Author's Note:**

> This was just a little idea I had that got me to wondering, so here it is. :)  
Again, I own nothing.

Bruce never told any of his children about his curse, but he remembers the days when they all found out. Those he loves have the power to hurt him. 

That’s why he knows when they’re hiding something. His curse is the reason he gets “papercuts” out of nowhere from one of them telling him they’re fine. Bruce feels the lie as it hurts them to say it. It’s agony to know that when they’re in pain or are hurting on the inside, they don’t feel they can come to him. 

The first time someone found out was when Bruce was very young. Alfred was picking him up from school after he’d been sent to the office for misbehaving. Alfred told him that everything would be okay. 

It was a lie in his heart, but it’s a scar now on Bruce’s skin. He stares at it sometimes, the crescent-shaped scar in the middle of his palm giving the appearance of a blood oath healed long ago. Bruce had always wondered why there, but now he understands. Alfred knew everything wouldn’t be all right, but he was going to try his hardest to make it so. 

Alfred doesn’t lie much anymore. 

******

As a boy, Dick liked to fib a lot. He’d always have an excuse for something that happened, but Bruce would know the truth. A crisscrossing of thin scars across Bruce’s shoulders denote every one of them. 

He remembers when Dick found out about his curse. He had just benched Dick from patrol after a particularly bad day. He didn’t want to risk him getting hurt in the field because he was distracted. 

“_You never cared about me! _” he had shouted. 

Bruce’s breath tumbled from his mouth as a wound opened in his chest. Dick had interpreted it as an emotional hurt, and at the time he wanted to hurt Bruce. 

“You took me in because you pitied me, and now that you’re stuck with me, you don’t care how I feel!” Dick’s expression crumbled. “_You don’t want to protect me. You’re just trying to keep me out of the way. _”

Bruce collapsed, clutching a hand to his chest to stop the bleeding as Dick skidded to his knees in front of him. 

“B! Dad, what’s going on?!” His young boy, his son, discarded his anger in only moments. 

All Bruce could do was lift his hand to touch Dick’s face. “It’s all right, Dick. I love you.” 

“No, no, no, no! It’s not all right! It’s not all right, okay? I’m sorry, dad. Please, please don’t go!” He hit the red emergency button on the Batcomputer. “It’s not okay!” 

The next few hours were all kinds of fuzzy, but he remembers Alfred explaining what happened through the haze. He recalls Dick’s fearful expression as he realized just how much power his words had. He hated that he had hurt Bruce, and he felt betrayed because Bruce hadn’t warned him. 

Why would he want to burden his child with the knowledge that he would hurt him if he said what he was feeling? 

******

Tim learned the easy way. 

“I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.” 

Bruce winced and stuck his finger in his mouth to stop the blood. Tim looked at him funny, but Bruce only shrugged. “Papercut.” 

He was sitting at his desk doing paperwork from WE at the time, so it had been plausible. 

The next time, they were in the cave. Tim was limping as he ducked into the infirmary, glancing back and forth to make sure he wasn’t being watched. Bruce, who is fully aware of how to hide his presence from his kids, was able to stay out of sight. 

He entered the room right as Tim was bandaging up his thigh. “Are you okay?” 

Tim’s head snapped up. “Everything is fine.” 

Bruce tilted his face away as he felt the small cut on his cheek open up. He brushed his finger over it, the tip coming back red. Instead of arguing with him, he approached and helped him patch his leg. 

“Your... shaving cut is still bleeding.” 

Bruce glanced up at him. “Was just finishing up when I heard you come in. Got in too much of a hurry.” 

Tim blinked. “You shaved in the Batcave bathroom?” 

“Good a place as any.” 

The way Tim looked at him was analyzing, but he said nothing. Bruce got him all snug and safe in a bandage, inspecting his stitches with critical eyes. He ruffled Tim’s hair and walked away, glancing back at him with a smile. 

“Next time, ask if you need stitches. They aren’t really a one-person job unless it’s someone else doing them.” 

Tim’s brow was still furrowed. “Sure.” 

The time after that, Tim was sick in bed. They’d had an argument recently, and his son really wasn’t in the best frame of mind. 

Bruce was sitting on the edge of his bed, a bowl of soup in his hand and a damp wash cloth on his knee. “Come on, Tim. You have to eat something. You’ll need all the strength you can get with your immune system as poor as it is.” 

Tim resolutely looked away from him. “Like you care.” 

Bruce tried not to slosh the soup as a cut opened up over his knuckles. Tim definitely knew those words were false. His attention was drawn back to Bruce immediately and his eyes widened at the sight. 

“H-how did you get that?” 

Bruce put the soup down, pressing the cloth to his bleeding hand and looking up at his son. It took a second for the information to sink in, but Tim was more observant than Bruce gave him credit for. 

“So that’s how you always know.” 

Alfred walked into the room then, noting Bruce cradling his hand and Tim staring at it as if it held the secrets to the universe. “I shall fetch the stitches, Master Bruce.” 

“Thank you, Alfred.” 

Bruce lowered his hand to his knee so he wouldn’t have to hold it and lifted his free hand to card his fingers through Tim’s hair. “Of course I care, sweetheart.” Tim didn’t seem to know what to do with the information, so Bruce simply smiled, tilting his head a little sadly. “I love you, Tim. I know sometimes you have your doubts, but you know.” He pressed his hand against the boy’s chest. “You know it in here.” 

Tears started to stream down Tim’s face and he started on an endless stream of apologies. Bruce forgave him. 

He always does. 

******

Damian.... Damian rarely ever lied. He was, if Bruce is honest with himself, an arrogant brat with entitlement issues. Children lie to protect themselves, but Damian was too prickly to let himself be hurt. Or so Bruce thought. 

His first lie was child-like. 

It had been after a rough patrol, and Damian had been faced with human traffickers and child abusers throughout the night. He hates seeing kids his own age faced with torments that shouldn’t be theirs. He gives his heart and strength to any mission involving children, and Bruce can safely say he does the same. 

It had comforted him to know that Damian was more like him than he thought. 

“Damian.” Bruce said, already out of the cowl and into a tank and sweats. 

The boy looked up at him as he dropped his bracer on the ground. After stooping to pick it up, he responded. “Yes, father?” 

“I know seeing the darkness in people out on the streets can be... disconcerting. It’s all right if you feel like you need a break.” 

Damian’s brow lowered as he considered those words. “You think I’m weak?” 

Bruce was safe then because it was a question. “No.” 

“Do you think that because I’m so young, I require gentle handling and coddling like some child without any sense of self-preservation?” 

“No.” 

He’d never disliked Damian’s blunt questions as much as he had in that moment. It was striking to know that he’d rather be lied to. 

“Then don’t treat me like I’m fragile.” 

“Damian, I....” 

The glare he received for even beginning the statement was withering, but Bruce was unfazed. 

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay.” 

“Because I’m your obligation.” 

It hurt more than a lie to know that his son believed it. He believed that Bruce was only taking care of him because he was blood. Because Thalia asked him to. Or maybe even because Bruce didn’t trust him. 

“No, Damian. I want to make sure you’re okay because you’re my son.” He placed his hands on the boy’s shoulders. “It’s all right to be scared sometimes.” 

Damian wrenched himself back. “I am_ not _afraid.” 

A long cut drew itself from the top of Bruce’s shoulder all the way down to his elbow. Damian stared at it, the blood already dripping down onto the floor. Bruce gripped the wound, holding his composure to give Damian a chance to understand. 

“What.... I-” He broke off, stepping towards Bruce with an outstretched hand. “I didn’t.... Did I do that?” 

He looked shattered at the notion that he could hurt Bruce without lifting a finger. Bruce merely pulled him close and hugged him with his good arm, leaning down to press a kiss into his hair. 

“Fear isn’t weakness, Damian. Fear keeps us alive. Fear is why I asked you if you needed a break, because I don’t want to lose you, Damian.” 

Damian would never admit it, but he was crying into Bruce’s shirt. Hurting the people he cares about has been a fear that he never got over. Bruce can’t say he blames the boy to this day, but even back then, Bruce knew that hurting the ones you love is inevitable. 

Damian’s words were muffled when he next spoke, but they still broke Bruce’s heart. “I didn’t think you were afraid of anything.” 

Bruce could only chuckle. “Then you’re a dummy.” 

He let Damian help with the stitches. 

Jason had to die and come back again before he learned the truth. Even as angry as he was when first returning the Gotham, he wasn’t completely wrong. 

With two dead bodies on the floor between them, Jason stood his ground after long months of being at odds with Bruce. He could never get past the Joker’s still being alive, and now he’s taking it out on the criminal element in Gotham. 

These two were gang members who got their kicks by selling drugs to kids. Bruce had known when they first got on the case, even if it was just a feeling then, that they weren’t going to get out alive. 

Bruce simply stares at him now. He isn’t sure what he can say. He was too late to stop him, and Jason would never give in. 

It takes a few minutes for Jason to say what he wants to. “What is it that you want from me?” 

Bruce was crushed by how defeated he sounded, his ferocious and brave boy talking as if he expects this to end things between them forever. Bruce would never, ever want that to happen, even if someone were to tell him it was unavoidable.

“I can’t follow your rules and allow men like this to keep hurting people.” 

For the first time in months, Bruce was certain that it no longer mattered. Jason was never in the same frame of mind as him, and how could Bruce expect him to be? Jason poured out his soul on the streets of Gotham in the form of rage and blood and reckoning beyond measure. All the violence in the world wouldn’t faze him if it meant he was protecting people. 

For the first time in months, Bruce understood. 

“_Why don’t you say something?” _

“There’s nothing I can say.” Bruce whispered. 

Jason’s expression tightened with anger and he lifted his gun. “Why? Is there just too much evil in me? Does this make you finally realize that there can’t be peace without blood? Or have you given up trying to lecture me because you’ve decided that I’m a hopeless case? Tell me, Bruce, because I’m just so curious.” 

“It doesn’t matter.” 

Jason’s brow furrowed. “What?” 

“I said, ‘It doesn’t matter’.” 

Growling, Jason pulled his domino from his face, tossing it to the ground. “_Like hell_, it doesn’t matter. All these months you’ve been hounding me. Chasing me. Trying to end bloodshed that didn’t even begin to cover what needed to be done! And now, what? None of that matters? You’ve just miraculously changed your mind?!” 

“You’re not me.” Bruce said simply, pulling his cowl down so Jason could see his face. “It doesn’t matter because... no matter what you do, no matter how much you fight me, no matter how different we are.... I love you, Jason.” 

“You love me?” Jason’s lips curled into a snarl. 

Bruce knew what was coming. 

“Well,_ I _ -” Jason cut off, making a sharp gesture towards himself. “I_ hate_ you." 

Everything inside of Bruce twisted, blood starting to drip from his nose almost immediately. He coughed, doubling over. Blood puffed from his mouth. He stumbled to the ground, Jason grabbing his arm out of instinct to try to keep him up. 

“Bruce!” 

It was like nothing Bruce had ever experienced in his life, as if the lie was tearing at Bruce’s insides with the intention of leaving nothing behind. Jason had meant it to hurt. He had meant it to destroy Bruce because it was the worst lie he knew how to tell. 

It didn’t take long for everything to go black. 

An unknowable amount of time later, Bruce woke up alone in the hospital. The TV on the wall was quietly playing what looked like weekend shows. There was a book next to his bed that he couldn’t make out the title of. Bruce’s head was fuzzy and his mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton. 

The door opened. 

Their outline was hazy, but the brown leather jacket covering their shoulders was unmistakable. Bruce’s mouth struggled to form the word, but he managed it. “Jason?” 

He came to attention, striding over to the side of the bed and placing a hand by Bruce’s head. “You’re awake? The doc said you’d be out for another couple of days. Of course, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised because you’re a stubborn asshole.” 

Bruce lifted a hand that weighed a ton to Jason’s face. “Hey.” Bruce said softly. “Don’t worry.” 

“'Don’t worry' says the guy who started hemorrhaging internally for no reason whatsoever.” He glared at Bruce. “You’ve been in a mini-coma for four days.” 

“Hmph.” 

Jason’s stare quickly became less heated and Bruce watched his expression as well as he could. “Bruce, you almost died.” 

There was nothing he could say to that. 

“Why didn’t you stop me?” 

“Sometimes, Jason....” Bruce took a deep breath, aided by the small tube of pure oxygen on his face. He hadn’t realized it was there. “You hurt those you care about, and sometimes I have to let you. I know.... I_ know_ that you know what the truth is, and it is a double-edged sword.” 

Jason shifted to sit in the chair beside the bed. “What I said almost killed you. I.... I’d say I didn’t want to hurt you, but....” 

Bruce chuckled. “I think we’d both know that’s a lie.” 

Jason’s face fell and he looked disgusted with himself. “That’s not funny.” 

Bruce hummed, offering Jason his hand. “Sometimes, Jason, hurting someone is the only way for you to realize that you love them too much to let them be in pain. That’s... how I figured out that when it....” He closed his eyes, sighing. “When it comes to those you love, the rules come second.” 

“It’s sad that that even remotely makes sense to me.” He said, trying for a bit a humor before becoming serious again. Bruce hated that Jason made it sound as if Bruce’s decision was on the edge of a blade. “I’m not going to follow them if you somehow conveniently forget you said that.” 

Bruce slowly shook his head, the fuzziness returning. “No rules in the universe are worth losing you over, kiddo.” 

Jason blinked. “How good are the drugs they gave you?” 

He shrugged as well as he could, laughing for Jason’s sake if nothing else. He was too tired and his thoughts were too muddled for much else. “Probably pretty good.” 

His son stood up again, moving close enough to hold Bruce’s hand to his chest. “Bruce.... I’m sorry.” 

“I know, sweetheart.” Bruce smiled at him. “I love you.” 

Jason scrubbed his face with his sleeve, capturing a few escaping tears. It was almost a miracle considering how much he dislikes showing weakness even around people he trusts. He sniffed, seeming younger than he tries to appear. “I love you, too.” 

For Bruce, there is no greater joy than the pain of knowing the truth. 


End file.
